1899-1909

“The Filipinos attacked the American position around this city at half-past eight last night. It began with sharp firing on the outposts from several quarters at once, and grew to a furious conflict as the night advanced. The insurgents fought savagely, but the defending lines, which have been ready for this for weeks, held their own steadily. At this hour there is still hot firing. The Americans are still successfully repelling the assault.”

“To describe with any degree of adequacy the excitement in London, and indeed throughout the country, consequent upon the announcement yesterday of the relief of Ladysmith would be an almost impossible task. The news was made known a few minutes before ten o’clock at the War Office, and soon after the hour the welcome intelligence was proclaimed by the Lord Mayor from a window of the Mansion House.”

“The Lord Mayor of London last night received the following:- Osborne, Tuesday, 6.45pm. The Prince of Wales to the Lord Mayor. My beloved mother the Queen has just passed away, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. (signed) Albert Edward.”

“The announcement of peace was made at the evening service at St. Paul’s Cathedral to a fairly large congregation. Apparently the message came as a surprise, as evensong had commenced before the gratifying tidings were generally known even in the central parts of the City. There was an audible murmur of satisfaction when the telegram from Pretoria was read by the Bishop of Stepney.”

“The town of Evansville, in Indiana, has been the scene for several days of anti-negro riots, which have been attended by the loss of ten lives. A negro was imprisoned in the gaol on a charge of murdering a policeman who was endeavouring to arrest him, and on Sunday a mob set out to break into the gaol and lynch the negro.”

“According to a St. Petersburg telegram, the Russians are far from intending to allow the Japanese to advance unmolested from the Yalu to Feng-huang-cheng - General Kuropatkin’s first line of defence. On the contrary, it is declared they mean to offer serious resistance either at Antung or Shakhedz.”

“The events in the Odessa suburbs of Moldavanka, Slobodka, and Bugaieoka last night were of a most terrible nature. Immense bands of ruffians, accompanied by policemen, invaded all the Jewish houses and mercilessly slaughtered the occupants.”

“It is estimated that four millions are starving and tens of thousands reduced to utter destitution wandering over the country, in the North of Anhui, the East of Honan, and the whole of the North of Kiang-Su provinces of China.”

“The feat of flying across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine, a thing which had never before been done, was accomplished yesterday morning by M. Louis Bleriot, in a monoplane of his own construction.”

“A great crowd assembled early yesterday morning outside the famous police court in Bow street, London, where Dr. Crippen and Miss Le Neve were to be brought before the magistrate later in the day in connection with the mystery surrounding the discovery of human remains in the cellar of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road.”

“A raid made by London police early yesterday morning on a house in Stepney - 100, Sidney-street - in which two of the gang that murdered the three police offficers in Houndsditch last month were believed to be hiding, developed into a pitched battle or siege.”

“The maiden voyage of the White Star liner Titanic, the largest ship ever launched, has ended in disaster. An unofficial message from Cape Race, Newfoundland, stated that only 675 have been saved out of 2,200 to 2,400 persons on board.”

“Captain R. F. Scott, the famous Antarctic explorer, and four other members of the British South Polar Expedition have died amidst the Southern ice. The five men were the whole Southern party. They had reached the Pole on January 18, 1912, just over a month after Captain Amundsen, the Norwegian, and had struggled far back towards safety when they were overcome.”

“The Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, nephew of the aged Emperor and heir to the throne, was assassinated in the streets of Sarayevo, the Bosnian capital, yesterday afternoon. His wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, was killed by the same assassin. Some reports say the Duchess was deliberately shielding her husband from the second shot when she was killed.”

“The death roll in the Lusitania disaster is still not certainly known. About 750 persons were rescued, but of these some 50 have died since they were landed. Over 2,150 men, women and children were on the liner when she left New York, and since the living do not number more than 710, the dead cannot be fewer than 1,450.”

“A very serious outbreak organised by Sinn Feiners occurred in Dublin on Monday. A large body of men, mostly armed, seized St. Stephen’s Green and the Post Office, and also houses in St Stephen’s Green, Sackville Street (where the Post Office is situated), the adjacent Abbey Street, and on the quays along the Liffey. The telegraph and telephone lines were cut.”

“The Palace was pillaged and devastated from top to bottom by the Bolshevik armed mob, as though by a horde of barbarians. All the State papers were destroyed. Priceless pictures were ripped from their frames by bayonets.”

“The war is over, and in a million households fathers and mothers, wives and sisters, will breathe freely, relieved at length of all dread of that curt message which has shattered the hope and joy of so many.”

“The first direct Transatlantic flight from America to Europe has been achieved by Captain Alcock, D.S.C., a Manchester pilot flying the Vickers Vimy-Rolls aeroplane with Lieutenant A. W. Brown as navigator.”

1920-29

After Lenin’s death in 1924, a power struggle ensued, with Stalin emerging as his successor. Photograph: AP Photo/Sovfoto

“At the moment when Mussolini, the leader of the Italian Fascisti, was seizing control of the country by force, the governing authority has been placed in his hands by the King, who yesterday asked him to form a Cabinet.”

“The German reactionaries have struck and failed. News of their overthrow comes close upon the heels of the announcement of the coup, which appeared in our later editions yesterday. The coup’s leaders, Ludendorff and Hitler, were captured.”

“The remarkable discovery of Dr. Millikan, a Nobel prize-winner for physic, of new penetrating rays far shorter and more powerful than any hitherto known, has aroused the keenest interest of authorities in this country.”

“The first day of the strike passed off, in a sense, uneventfully. The absence of trains and trams is not a new thing; it was borne good humouredly, and in no part of the country did any kind of serious disturbance occur. Already, by the second day, there have been ominous signs that this peaceful state of affairs is gradually giving way to a more dangerous temper.”

“Captain Lindbergh, the young United States airman, reached Paris at 10.22 on Saturday night on his non-stop flight from New York. He is the first pilot to have crossed the Atlantic by himself, the first to fly from America to France, and the first to make an uninterrupted flight of 3,600 miles. The journey took 33 hours.”

“The enthronement of Emperor Hirohito was the culminating ceremony here to-day. It was cold but bright with a passing shower. Over a thousand people assembled at the Shishinden, or Throne Hall, your correspondent being one of a privileged group viewing the ceremony through the Kemei Gate.”

“The heavy break on the New York Stock Exchange, which began on Saturday and has been increased on each succeeding day except Tuesday, when there was a slight recovery, reached catastrophic proportions yesterday with a crash described as the worst in the history of the Exchange. It is estimated that £1,000,000,000 in paper values had been swept away by the close of the market.”

“The concentration camp at Dachau is often represented as a model of its kind. The truth is that this camp is in no sense a model, although it is no worse than many of the Hitlerite concentration camps. The total number of prisoners who have been killed or who have died of their injuries at Dachau cannot be far short of fifty.”

“Mussolini’s Fascist troops marched into Ethiopia today - and as the war-drums called Emperor Haile Selassie’s people to fight, the League of Nations in Geneva was facing its greatest test since it was formed in 1919.”

“Mr. Chamberlain went to a first-floor window and leaned forward happily smiling on the people. ‘My good friends,’ he said - it took some time to still the clamour so that he might be heard - ‘this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany ‘peace with honour.’ I believe it is peace for our time.’”

“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unweakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

“The Note on Jewish persecution in Poland which the Polish Government in London has addressed to the respective Governments of the United Nations contains a comprehensive account of the horrors being perpetrated by the Germans on Polish soil.”

“Italy has surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, and hostilities between the United Nations and Italy ended early yesterday evening. There were unconfirmed reports this morning of new Allied landings at several points north and south of Rome.”

“There is a feeling of confidence at this headquarters to-night. No one imagines that the supreme battle which began on the beaches of of Normandy early this morning will be won by the Allies without bitter fighting against a determined and desperate enemy, but there is a general sense that the ‘first hurdles’ of invasion of the European Continent have been successfully surmounted.”

“One hundred thousand Japanese may have been killed or wounded by the single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This was the unofficial estimate at Guam to-night after reports of the tremendous devastation wrought had come in.”

“In Czechoslovakia life is normal. This does not seem so surprising if you go from London to Prague by air, travelling more easily and more quickly, than from London to Edinburgh. It is incredible and bewildering if you come to Prague overland through the chaos and starvation of any of the surrounding countries.”

“British rule in India ended at midnight last night after 163 years. To-day the new Dominions of India and Pakistan are in being. At midnight in Delhi, capital of India, Lord Mountbatten ceased to be the Viceroy and became Governor General of India.”

“The Jews yesterday proclaimed in Tel Aviv the new State of Israel. It was formally recognised last night by the United States. In Jerusalem firing began as soon as the Army and the police left and increased steadily as the Jews began to take buildings in the central zone and to hoist the Zionist flag on them.”

“The blockade of Berlin ended at one minute past midnight this morning when a British convoy started its journey through the Soviet zone. Less than two hours later the first cars had reached Berlin without incident.”

1950-59

Black students are escorted into Little Rock High School, Arkansas in 1957 having previously been prevented from entering by the state governor. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

“Owners of television sets seldom switch off even programmes which they admit to disliking, so that the extent to which television is watched seems to depend only to a limited extent upon the nature of the programme transmitted, said Mr Robert Silvey, head of Audience Research, B.B.C., when he addressed the Manchester Statistical Society last night on methods of viewer research employed by the corporation.”

“Three and a half months after its removal from the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey early on Christmas morning, the Stone of Scone was to-day deposited in Arbroath Abbey in Scotland. Three men drove up to the abbey and carried the stone, which was draped in a St. Andrew’s flag along the main aisle before laying it at the high altar.”

“Senora Peron’s body was brought to the Ministry to-day from the Presidential Palace. It will lie in state, in a coffin draped with the Argentine flag and white orchids and other flowers, until Tuesday.”

“The news of Stalin’s death had just been released to the outside world by Moscow’s foreign services. Now, surely, was the moment for the Russians to be told. But they were not told anything - except perhaps by implication.”

“Roger Bannister, aged 25, to-day became the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes. His time at the Iffley Road track, Oxford, in the annual match between the Amateur Athletic Association and Oxford University, was 3min. 59.4sec.”

“One thing must be said immediately. In 365 days’ time, Independent Television will have been with us for a year. So far, it has been with us for a bare hand-count of hours, and although the conclusions are crying to be jumped to, the temptation to jump must be resisted.”

“Within a few months, so we are promised by the big record companies, stereophonic discs will be available in this country. The question all record-collectors will want to ask is whether we are going to be faced with yet another gramophone upheaval on the scale of the L.P. revolution.”

“All of Cuba to-day was under the precarious control of Fidel Castro, the 31-year-old rebel whom the Batista Government pictured to its graceless end as a ragamuffin hiding in the scrub hills of Oriente Province.”

1960-69

“Mr Macmillan, a weary-looking father figure, at last held out his hand yesterday and offered to try to lead the Commons and the country into Europe, if he can find the way. There was a good deal of kicking and screaming and this was to be expected.”

“Major Yuri Gagarin described today how it felt to be the first man in space - how he was able to write and work and how he burst out singing for joy as his ship plunged back towards the earth. ‘Everything was easier to perform? legs and arms weighed nothing,’ he told an interviewer.”

“President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot during a motorcade drive through downtown Dallas this afternoon. He died in the emergency room of the Parkland Memorial Hospital 32 minutes after the attack. He was 46 years old.”

“Physically, the Beatle invasion was launched just after 1 p.m. when their air liner touched down to pandemonium at Kennedy Airport. But in fact New York has been in the tightening grip of Beatlemania for some weeks.”

“An Australian battalion joined United States paratroops and South Vietnamese forces today in an attack on a Vietcong stronghold about 30 miles north of Saigon. This was the first time US troops were employed in an offensive role.”

“To the accompaniment of expressions of praise, thanksgiving, and, in some cases, undisguised disbelief, England became football champions of the world by defeating West Germany 4-2 on Saturday at Wembley.”

“Fighting broke out today on all Israel’s borders with its Arab neighbours. Official Israeli statements said that attacks had been launched in the area of the Negev, in Jerusalem, and along the Syrian border near Dagania.”

“Nationwide power cuts averaged 31 per cent yesterday, with 40 per cent in some areas, and hospitals faced their most critical 24 hours of the strike so far with staff struggling to keep going by candle and battery power.”

“The men of D company were discussing the question of why in hell they had had no beer, or at least soda, for a whole month when I arrived on their hill. They wanted to tell me about those in the rear who were stealing the beer and soda from them, but I wanted to talk about ‘the action.’”

“The tragic and inevitable doomsday situation which has been universally forecast for Northern Ireland arrived in Londonderry yesterday afternoon when soldiers firing into a large crowd of civil rights demonstrators, shot and killed 13 civilians.”

“Britain passed peacefully into Europe at midnight last night without any special celebration. It was difficult to tell that anything of importance had occurred, and a date which will be entered in the history books as long as histories of Britain are written, was taken by most people as a matter of course.”

“The last that we saw of him as President was his limp right hand flapping occasionally like a dying fish, trying to wave a laconic farewell through the bulletproof glass of the shiny green helicopter.”

“An Indonesian-supported force launched a full-scale attack by air and sea on the former Portuguese colony of Timor at dawn today. More than 1,000 army commandos parachuted into the capital of Dili in the first wave of the attack.”

“The manager of a record shop in Nottingham who displayed in his window the new best-selling LP record by the Sex Pistols, which displays on its sleeve the title ‘Never mind the Bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols’ has been charged with offences under the 1889 Indecent Advertisement Act.”

“The man who answered ‘human race’ when asked to what race he belonged would get short shrift at West End Central police station, London. For there human classifications have achieved an elaborate formality, as a bemused magistrate heard yesterday.”

1980-89

“The border conflict between Iraq and Iran turned into a full-scale war yesterday after both sides bombed each other’s airbases and clashed repeatedly on the ground and at sea along the 720-mile frontier.”

“On Friday afternoon, a police patrol in Brixton stopped to help a black youth who had been stabbed in the back. The incident marked the beginning of a build-up of police strength and a confrontation began which erupted into violence on Saturday afternoon when a black youth was arrested outside a minicab office.”

“A thousand dead, terrible wounds; the Union Jack flying again over the Falklands (pop. 1,800); rejoicing and mutual congratulation in the House of Commons; champagne and Rule Britannia in Downing Street - each must draw his or her own balance sheet and historians must decide where to place the Falklands War in the annals of Britain’s post-1945 adjustment to her reduced circumstances as a declining power.”

“Aids surfaced in Haiti. West Coast homosexuals brought it back to San Francisco. Cheap transatlantic travel flew it into England. And next year the handful of known cases will become hundreds as the four-year incubation period comes to an end for gays, and maybe even for their heterosexual partners.”

“One of Thatcherism’s most startling gifts to British society is to have thoroughly politicised it. Little now occurs, in large reaches of public and sometimes private life which does not have political importance and is not subjected to a test of its relevance to the prevailing ideology.”

“One of the most significant chapters in Britain’s trade union history was closed last night when the miners reluctantly agreed to call off their strike in a mood of bitterness and tears, almost a year after it had begun.”

“After three days of virtual news blackout, the Soviet authorities finally admitted last night what Scandinavia had already deduced from radioactive fallout - that the Chernobyl nuclear accident is a “disaster”, that some people have been killed and thousands evacuated.”

“As Ronald Reagan journeyed triumphally from Texas to California in the closing hours of campaign ‘88, tipping his stetson to the crowds lining the streets for a glimpse of the Gipper on his last hurrah, it was plain that, whatever his failings, the American people are both forgiving and adoring.”

“Students had been bayoneted to death, others had set fire to two armoured personnel carriers and trucks, tanks had crushed to death 11 students who had left the square and were lagging behind the others, more students had been crushed to death in their tents. ‘How could the Communist Party do this? How could they shoot children?’ asked a worker in blue overalls.”

“Bombs rained down on Baghdad and other targets in Iraq and Kuwait early today as the long months of waiting in the Gulf crisis finally ended. Allied planes launched wave after wave of air attacks on the city and on Iraq’s Scud missile bases.”

“With faith, hope and a careworn charity, Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organisation shook hands on a joint accord at the White House yesterday and rolled the dice of history in what President Bill Clinton called ‘a brave gamble for peace’.”

“The Rwandan capital of Kigali descended into chaos yesterday as troops, presidential guards and gendarmes swept through the suburbs killing the prime minister, United Nations peacekeepers and scores of civilians.”

“The small Scottish town of Dunblane was racked with grief and horror last night as details emerged of the killer who had lived in their midst until yesterday, when he shot dead 16 small children and a teacher in three minutes of carnage in a primary school gym.”

“With a clenched-jaw nod from the Prince of Wales, a last rendition of God Save the Queen, and a wind machine to keep the Union flag flying for a final 16 minutes of indoor pomp, Britain last night at midnight shut down the empire that once encompassed a quarter of the globe.”

“As the bombers go in, for the first time in the long evolution of the Balkan crisis, the outside powers are directly confronting the author of that crisis. Always before, the Serbian leader has distanced himself from the tragic situations which he has played such a large part in creating.”